Nationwide — Beauty Supply Institute, a training and consulting organization founded in 2007 by former business & economics professor and 3-time store owner Devin Robinson, is hosting its 1st Annual Beauty Supply Summit on Sunday, May 21, 2017 at 8am at the Cobb Galleria Centre in Atlanta, GA. The Beauty Supply Summit will place black business owners, stylists, salon/shop owners, friendly distributors, and manufacturers from across the nation all under one roof to discuss strategies that will allow Blacks to succeed with doing business in the beauty supply industry.

Blacks are commonly racially profiled and falsely accused of committing crimes simply because the pigmentation of their skin, as in the case with Missha Beauty supply store in Charlotte, NC. Sung Ho Lim, Missha Beauty’s store manager, was videotaped pushing, kicking, and finally choking out a Black female customer whom he accused of stealing eye lashes. The video footage went viral nationwide and brought attention to the issues of blacks and business with Asian-owned beauty supply stores. Many Blacks were outraged and temporarily boycotted shopping at Asian-owned beauty supply stores.

Professor Devin Robinson personally had his own negative experience with an Asian-owned beauty supply store owner as he was threatened with a golf club in 2005 while shopping for supplies for his salon. He stated, “It said that in 2017 we can still have such a major disparity between who shops at and who owns beauty supply stores that focus on the black consumer”. Robinson founded Beauty Supply Institute to help entrepreneurs get into store ownership and the summit is to attract entrepreneurs who do business with stores, would like to own stores or can help improve the landscape of the collective of stores. To date, Beauty Supply Institute has opened over 90 stores nationally, in Canada and in the Caribbean.

Attendees of this year’s summit will get to hear from business experts such as Dr. George Fraser, founder of FraserNet, Deshawn Bullard, founder of NouriTress, Karen Mitchell, founder of True Indian Hair, Sparkle Hyche, owner of Salon 422 and others. These participants, alongside other headlining leaders in business & beauty, will be serving as guest speakers and panelists. Attendees, who are business owners or aspiring business owners, will become further educated and informed through these discussions and then trained in detailed on how to successfully do business in this industry through workshops by leading business professionals.

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